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      in US Politics

      Hurricane Idalia: Georgia declares state of emergency as severe flooding and storm surges hit south-eastern US – live

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      From 2h agoGeorgia governor Brian Kemp has issued a state of emergency for the state that is set to last until 11.59pm on 8 September.“We are taking every precaution ahead of Hurricane Idalia’s landfall tomorrow, and I am taking this additional executive action to ensure state assets are ready to respond,” Kemp said on Tuesday ahead of Idalia.“Georgians in the expected impact area can and should take necessary steps to ensure their safety and that of their families. We are well positioned to respond to whatever Idalia may bring,” he added.The executive order said that Idalia “has the potential to produce severe impacts to citizens throughout south-central and southeast coastal Georgia”, and that potential flooding, downed trees, power lines, and debris may render “Georgia’s network of roads impassable in affected counties, isolating residences and persons from access to essential public services.”The Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, warned potential looters seeking to steal from people’s homes following the storm, saying: “You loot, we shoot.”“I’ve told all of our personnel at the state level, you protect people’s property and we are not going to tolerate any looting in the aftermath of a natural disaster. I mean, it’s just ridiculous that you would try to do something like that on the heels of an almost category 4 hurricane hitting this community,” DeSantis said in a press conference on Wednesday.
      “Also, just remind potential looters that even you never know what you’re walking into. People have a right to defend the property. [In] this part of Florida, you got a lot of advocates [who] are proponents of the second amendment and I’ve seen signs in different people’s yards in the past after these disasters and I would say probably here: ‘You loot, we shoot.’”
      World Central Kitchen, a non-profit founded by the celebrity chef and restaurateur José Andrés, mobilized its teams across western Florida ahead of Hurricane Idalia making landfall earlier today.WCK teams have prepared hundreds of sandwiches to provide immediate relief for residents.The Florida division of emergency management has issued a warning on hidden dangers of floodwaters.“Please do NOT walk, wade or drive through floodwaters as they can hide a variety of dangers,” the division said.Here are some graphics created by the Guardian’s visuals team on Hurricane Idalia’s path and direction:The Guardian has published an explainer on storm surges and the threat from storm surges from Hurricane Idalia.For the full story, click here:Here are some images of Hurricane Idalia coming through the newswires:The South Carolina governor, Henry McMaster, said that he does not think Hurricane Idalia will be as detrimental as other hurricanes that have swept through the state.“This is not as bad as some that we’ve seen. We don’t think it’s going to be as disruptive as some but it is going to be disruptive. There’s going to be high winds, a lot of water,” McMaster said at a press briefing on Wednesday.He added that the state is not going to have any evacuations, saying:
      “We are not going to have any evacuations. We’re not have any closing of state agencies … This does not appear to be one that requires any evacuation orders or closing of state agencies but some of the schools are closed. Some of the schools are closed, we’re urging them to try to get back open back up as quickly as possible …
      We’ve been through this before. We’ve been through a lot worse than this one appears to be, so we are ready.”
      Georgia governor Brian Kemp has issued a state of emergency for the state that is set to last until 11.59pm on 8 September.“We are taking every precaution ahead of Hurricane Idalia’s landfall tomorrow, and I am taking this additional executive action to ensure state assets are ready to respond,” Kemp said on Tuesday ahead of Idalia.“Georgians in the expected impact area can and should take necessary steps to ensure their safety and that of their families. We are well positioned to respond to whatever Idalia may bring,” he added.The executive order said that Idalia “has the potential to produce severe impacts to citizens throughout south-central and southeast coastal Georgia”, and that potential flooding, downed trees, power lines, and debris may render “Georgia’s network of roads impassable in affected counties, isolating residences and persons from access to essential public services.”The Guardian’s Ankita Rao has tweeted photos of what she describes as “some of the worst flooding” in Tarpon, Florida, that her parents and friends have seen as a result of Hurricane Idalia.According to Rao, the access to and from one of her friend’s home has been flooded entirely.Other residents can be seen kayaking across the flood waters.Idalia has brought heavy flooding and damage to the state’s Gulf coast after it made landfall slightly before 8am ET on Wednesday as a category 3 storm.“I found them all to be laser focused on what their needs were and I asked them, but I think they’re reassured that we’re going to be there for whatever they need, including search and rescue off the shore,” Biden said of the governors of North and South Carolina, as well as Georgia, as he reffirmed federal assistance to southeastern states currently enduring Hurricane Idalia.“How can we not respond? My god, how can we not respond to those needs?” Biden said in response to whether he can assure Amricans that the federal government is going to have the emergency funding that they need to get through this hurricane season.“I’m confident even though there’s a lot of talk from some of our friends up in the Hill about the cost. We got to do it. This is the United States of America,” he added.“I don’t think anybody can deny the impact of a climate crisis anymore. Just look around. Historic floods. I mean, historic floods. More intense droughts, extreme heat, significant wildfires have caused significant damage,” Biden said.He added that he has directed the Federal Emergency Management Agency to redeploy resources, including up to 1,500 personnel and 900 Coast Guard personnel throughout the south-eastern states.Biden said that he approved an early request of an emergency declaration by Florida governor Ron DeSantis “in advance” of Hurricane Idalia’s arrival.He added that he spoke with the governors of Georgia and South Carolia and let each of them know that “if there’s anything the states need right now, I’m ready to mobilize that support.”President Joe Biden is speaking now about Hurricane Idalia.We will bring you the latest updates.Anthony White is in Perry, Florida where the small city is seeing widespread destruction as a result of Hurricane Idalia.He reports for the Guardian:Driving into Perry, a small, historic city with a population of just more than 7,000 on Wednesday morning, about 15 miles inland from the coast where Hurricane Idalia made landfall, the scene of destruction was jaw-dropping.Many residents had evacuated, especially after it was announced that some emergency shelters in the region would need to close because even they may not be able to withstand the impact of the storm.Approaching from Tallahassee, the state capital, 50 miles inland, where I left on Tuesday evening at the urging of relatives – having originally planned to ride out the hurricane – more and more streets and highways were blocked by fallen trees on the approach to Perry.There were power lines down all over the place and poles leaning, flood waters in some parts, and trees blocking even several lanes on both sides of the four-lane highway, forcing people to drive in the median. There was danger everywhere.For the full story, click here: More

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      in Elections

      Fact-Checking Ramaswamy’s Claims on Campaign Trail, Including on Climate and Jan. 6

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      The upstart Republican candidate has made inaccurate claims about climate change as well as the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, while mischaracterizing his own positions and past comments.Vivek Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur and author, commanded considerable attention during the first Republican primary debate as his standing was rising in national polls.Railing against “wokeism” and the “climate cult,” Mr. Ramaswamy has staked out unorthodox positions on a number of issues and characterized himself as the candidate most likely to appeal to young and new conservative voters.Here’s a fact check of his recent remarks on the campaign trail and during the debate.Climate change denialWhat Mr. Ramaswamy Said“There was this Obama appointee, climate change activist, who also believes as part of this Gaia-centric worldview of the earth that water rights need to be protected, which led to a five- to six-hour delay in the critical window of getting waters to put out those fires. We will never know, although certain science points out to the fact that we very well could have avoided those catastrophic deaths, many of them, if water had made it to the site of the fires on time.”— at a conservative conference in Atlanta in AugustThis lacks evidence. Mr. Ramaswamy was referring to M. Kaleo Manuel, the deputy director for Hawaii’s Commission on Water Resource Management, and overstating his ties to President Barack Obama as well as the potential effect of the requested water diversion.First, Mr. Manuel is not an “Obama appointee” but rather participated in a leadership development program run by the Obama Foundation in 2019. Mr. Ramaswamy and other conservative personalities have derided comments Mr. Manuel made last year when he said that native Hawaiians like himself used to consider water something to “revere” and something that “gives us life.”On Aug. 8, the day wildfire engulfed a historic town in Hawaii, Mr. Manuel was contacted by the West Maui Land Company, a real estate developer that supplies water to areas southeast of the town of Lahaina on Maui island, The New York Times has reported. Noting high winds and drought, the company requested permission to fill a private reservoir for fire control, though the reservoir was not connected to fire hydrants. No fire was blazing in the area at the time.The water agency asked the company whether the fire department had made the request, received no answer and said that it needed the approval of a farmer who relied on the water for his crops. The company said that it could not reach the farmer, but that the agency approved the request hours later.Asked for evidence of Mr. Ramaswamy’s claim that filling the reservoir when initially requested would have prevented deaths from the fire, a spokeswoman said it was “common sense — if you can put out a fire faster using water, you can save lives.”But state officials have said it is unlikely that the delay would have changed the course of the fire that swallowed Lahaina, as high winds would have prevented firefighters from gaining access to the reservoir. In an Aug. 10 letter to the water agency, an executive at the West Maui Land Company acknowledged that there was no way to know whether “filling our reservoirs” when initially requested would have changed the outcome, but asked the agency to temporarily suspend existing water regulations. The executive, in another letter, also wrote that “we would never imply responsibility” on Mr. Manuel’s part.What Mr. Ramaswamy Said“The reality is more people are dying of bad climate change policies than they are of actual climate change.”— in the first Republican debate on WednesdayFalse. There is no evidence to support this assertion. A spokeswoman for Mr. Ramaswamy cited a 2022 column in the libertarian publication “Reason” that argued that limiting the use of fossil fuels would hamper the ability to deliver power, heat homes and pump water during extreme weather events. But the campaign did not provide examples of climate change policies actually causing deaths. The World Meteorological Organization, a United Nations agency, estimated in May that extreme weather events, compounded by climate change, caused nearly 12,000 disasters and a death toll of 2 million between 1970 and 2021. Extreme heat causes about 600 deaths in the United States a year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A 2021 study found that a third of heat-related deaths could be attributed to climate change. In campaign appearances and social media posts, Mr. Ramaswamy has also pointed to a decline in the number of disaster-related deaths in the past century, even as emissions have risenThat, experts have said, is largely because of technological advances in weather forecasting and communication, mitigation tools and building codes. The May study by the World Meteorological Organization, for example, noted that 90 percent of extreme weather deaths occur in developing countries — precisely because of the gap in technological advances. Disasters are occurring at increasing frequencies, the organization has said, even as fatalities decrease.Mr. Ramaswamy, a millennial, has described himself as the candidate most likely to appeal to young and new conservative voters.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesJan. 6 and the 2020 electionWhat Mr. Ramaswamy Said“What percentage of the people who were armed were federal law-enforcement officers? I think it was probably high, actually. Right? There’s very little evidence of people being arrested for being armed that day. Most of the people who were armed, I assume the federal officers who were out there were armed.”— in an interview with The Atlantic in JulyFalse. Mr. Ramaswamy has echoed the right-wing talking point that the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol did not involve weapons and was largely peaceful. His spokeswoman argued that he was merely asking questions.But as early this month, 104 out of about 1,100 total defendants have been charged with entering a restricted area with a dangerous or deadly weapon, according to the Justice Department. At least 13 face gun charges.It is impossible to know just how many people in the crowd of 28,000 were armed, as some may have concealed their weapons or chosen to remain outside of magnetometers set up at the Ellipse, a sprawling park near the White House, where Mr. Trump held his rally. Still, through those magnetometers, Secret Service confiscated 242 canisters of pepper spray, 269 knives or blades, 18 brass knuckles, 18 stun guns, 30 batons or blunt instruments, and 17 miscellaneous items like scissors, needles or screwdrivers, according to the final report from the Jan. 6 committee.What was SaidChris Christie, former governor of New Jersey: “In your book, you had much different things to say about Donald Trump than you’re saying here tonight.”Mr. Ramaswamy: “That’s not true.”— in the Republican debateMr. Ramaswamy was wrong. During the debate, Mr. Ramaswamy vigorously defended Mr. Trump, calling him “ the best president of the 21st century.” Mr. Christie was correct that Mr. Ramaswamy was much more critical of Mr. Trump in his books.In his 2022 book, “Nation of Victims,” Mr. Ramaswamy wrote that despite voting for Mr. Trump in 2020, “what he delivered in the end was another tale of grievance, a persecution complex that swallowed much of the Republican Party whole.”Mr. Ramaswamy added that he was “especially disappointed when I saw President Trump take a page from the Stacey Abrams playbook,” referring to the Democratic candidate for Georgia governor who, after her 2018 defeat, sued the state over accusations of voter suppression. Moreover, he wrote, Mr. Trump’s claims of electoral fraud were “weak” and “weren’t grounded in fact.”In his 2021 book, “Woke Inc.,” Mr. Ramaswamy described the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol as a “a disgrace, and it was a stain on our history” that made him “ashamed of our nation.”And after the Jan. 6 attack, Mr. Ramaswamy wrote on Twitter, “What Trump did last week was wrong. Downright abhorrent. Plain and simple.”Foreign policyWhat Mr. RAMASWAMY said“Much of our military defense spending in the last several decades has not actually gone to national defense.”— in an interview on the Fox Business Network in AugustFalse. A spokeswoman for Mr. Ramaswamy said he was comparing military aid to foreign countries and “homeland defense.” But the amount the United States has spent on security assistance pales in comparison to general military spending and homeland security spending.According to the federal government’s foreign assistance portal, military aid to other countries ranged from $6 billion to $23 billion annually from the fiscal years 2000 to 2022, peaking in the fiscal years 2011 and 2012 when aid to Afghanistan alone topped $10 billion a year.In the past two decades, the Pentagon’s annual budget ranged from over $400 billion to over $800 billion. Operation and maintenance is the largest category of spending (36 percent) and includes money spent on fuel, supplies, facilities, recruiting and training, followed by compensation for military personnel (23 percent), procurement of new equipment and weapons (19 percent), and research and development (16 percent).The Department of Homeland Security itself has an annual budget that has increased from $40 billion in the 2004 fiscal year, when the agency was created, to over $100 billion in the 2023 fiscal year.Mr. Ramaswamy’s claim reflects a common misconception among American voters, who tend to overestimate the amount spent on foreign aid. Foreign aid of all categories — including military aid as well as assistance for health initiatives, economic development or democratic governance — makes up less than 1 percent of the total federal budget. In comparison, about one-sixth of federal spending goes to national defense, according to the Congressional Budget Office.Outside of official government figures, researchers at Brown University have estimated that since Sept. 11, military spending in the United States has exceeded $8 trillion. By that breakdown, the United States has spent $2.3 trillion in funding for overseas fighting versus $1.1 trillion in homeland security defenses. But that figure also includes spending that cannot be neatly categorized as overseas versus domestic defense spending: $1.3 trillion in general military spending increases and medical care, $1.1 trillion in interest payments and $2.2 trillion for future veterans care.What Was SaidNikki Haley, former United Nations ambassador: “You want to go and defund Israel, you want to give Taiwan to China. You want to go and give Ukraine to Russia.”Mr. Ramaswamy: “Let me address that. I’m glad you brought that up. I’m going to address each of those right now. This is the false lies of a professional politician.”— in the Republican debateBoth exaggerated. Ms. Haley omitted nuance in describing Mr. Ramaswamy’s foreign policy positions, but her characterizations are far from “lies.”In interviews and campaign appearances, Mr. Ramaswamy has said that he views the deal to provide Israel with $38 billion over 10 years for its security as “sacrosanct.” But he has said that by 2028, when the deal expires, he hopes that Israel “will not require and be dependent on that same level of historical aid or commitment from the U.S.”In a nearly hourlong speech at the Nixon Library this month, Mr. Ramaswamy said his administration would “defend Taiwan if China invades Taiwan before we have semiconductor independence in this country,” which he estimated he could achieve by 2028. But, he continued, “thereafter, we will be very clear that after the U.S. achieves semiconductor independence, our commitments to send our sons and daughters to put them in harm’s way will change.”On Russia’s war in Ukraine, Mr. Ramaswamy has said he would “freeze the current lines of control” — which includes several southeastern regions of Ukraine — and pledge to prohibit Ukraine from being admitted to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization if Russia ended its “alliance” with China. (The two countries do not have a formal alliance.)Lisa Friedman contributed reporting.We welcome suggestions and tips from readers on what to fact-check on email and Twitter. More

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      in US Politics

      ‘It’s a beast’: landmark US climate law is too complex, environmental groups say

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      When President Joe Biden passed the Inflation Reduction Act a year ago, Adrien Salazar was skeptical.The landmark climate bill includes $60bn for environmental justice investments – money he had fought for, as policy director for the leading US climate advocacy coalition Grassroots Global Justice Alliance (GGJA).But after much discussion, the grassroots group realized they did not have the resources to chase after IRA funding. It would have to hire new staff and develop a specific program to apply for grants to access those funds. The coalition is stretched thin as is: organizing local and state campaigns, leading community engagement, and planning youth programming. GGJA decided it would not apply to funding opportunities at all.“It is not within our capacity to try to build a program that helps our members access federal funding. We just don’t have the capacity to do that,” Salazar said. Many employees lack the time or knowhow to take on grant opportunities.“We’re a national organization. How can we imagine a small organization that’s doing neighborhood, grassroots-level door-knocking to have the capacity to also navigate the federal bureaucracy?”Indeed, many of the small, community-based organizations that would benefit from funding the most are facing hurdles to competing for these investments.Together, their experiences tell a story that echoes other environmental justice experts’ concerns about the IRA – that the monumental spending package won’t assist the communities that need the money the most.Last year, advocates speaking to the Guardian criticized the bill for its many concessions to the fossil fuel industry: “This new bill is genocide, there is no other way to put it,” said Siqiñiq Maupin, co-founder of the Indigenous-led environmental justice group Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic. Salazar felt similarly: how could he trust the federal government to allocate those billions of dollars to communities of color when it still fails to protect them from polluters?Now, a second major criticism has emerged: some groups simply don’t have the time or resources to navigate the complicated bureaucratic process of applying for funding.A year after the law’s passing, various grant deadlines for funding have already come and gone, representing key opportunities many groups may have missed.Applying for funding opportunities – which is no guarantee of success – requires local community groups that are often run by volunteers to prepare an enormous amount of documentation.Lakiesha Lloyd, an organizer who lives and works in Charleston, West Virginia, is still educating herself on how the application process works. She sees the historic climate bill as a lifeline for her predominantly Black community on the West Side where concrete highways crisscross the neighborhood and poor air quality reigns.“We’ve never seen this kind of investment toward climate in our nation’s history,” said Lloyd, who works as a climate justice organizer for the national veterans rights group, Common Defense.Still, she has a lot to learn until she can tap in herself. Instead, she’s relying on a peer partner to help navigate the federal grant-making process.Morgan King, a climate campaign coordinator in West Virginia who has worked with Lloyd, said applying for grants is often easier said than done.“It’s not something that someone can just sit down alone and write within a several-hour time gap,” she said. “The grant application, especially for federal grants, is a beast and requires basically to set aside a week or two of time just focused on it.”This year, King worked with several non-profits to prepare an application for a public health-focused grant program.They had hoped to develop a pilot program on Charleston’s West Side to provide indoor air monitors to income-eligible households. With this data, local advocates could educate community members and engage them in citizen science while also building a case for electrifying homes that currently run on gas.Ultimately, the groups working with King weren’t able to develop an application that felt competitive before the grant deadline hit.“I think had we had a grant writer or more time, we could’ve gotten it there,” King said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn light of these challenges, some critics of the IRA have said their concerns about the spending bill have only deepened.Maria Lopez-Nuñez, a member of the White House environmental justice advisory council, remains wary of whether the money set aside for environmental justice priorities will outweigh the damage done by the legislation’s further investment in fossil fuels.“On one hand, there’s incredible amounts of money out there for communities to actually deal with the issues at hand,” said Lopez-Nuñez. “On the other hand, there are even larger investments in climate scams that are going to hit communities fast and hard,” she added, referring to IRA money set aside for carbon capture and sequestration, as well as hydrogen projects.With more funding, these types environmental harms are exactly the kinds of problems locals groups would be more effective at combating – if only they could access such grants. The federal government has taken notice of this irony and proposed a solution.In April, the Environmental Protection Agency announced the formation of over a dozen regional hubs – better known as TCTACs (pronounced like the mint) – that will aid local community groups attempting to access IRA money.“We know that so many communities across the nation have the solutions to the environmental challenges they face,” said the EPA administrator, Michael Regan, in a statement. “Unfortunately, many have lacked access or faced barriers when it comes to the crucial federal resources needed to deliver these solutions.”In the New York and New Jersey region, for instance, the EPA is funding the national advocacy group We-Act for Environmental Justice, which plans to hire a specialist in government funds and offer grant-writing training and workshops.“Across the federal government, there is no central place you can go to [learn] about the funding opportunities that are available,” said Dana Johnson, senior director of strategy and federal policy for We-Act.Although these hubs are meant to offer more specialized, regional assistance to groups, there are still some concerns as to whether they will be successful owing to the demands that will be made of them; the hub that covers the south-eastern US includes a mammoth territory of eight states.“It’s too soon to know if the IRA will be in any way successful, but it is very clear that the problems that were baked into it are very real and impacting people now,” said Tamara Toles O’Laughlin, a national climate strategist and founder of Climate Critical, an organization working to undo the harm and trauma many climate advocates carry.For Lloyd, the work of unlocking funding sources will continue with or without additional support from the federal government.Since March, she’s been working with King to meet with West Side neighbors and inform them about the IRA – and most importantly, dream with them about the types of projects they want to see emerge from the law’s investments. Together, they have come up with ideas for LED street lights, renewable energy development, green spaces and a farm-to-market grocery store.She’s looking forward to grants opening up and connecting with the technical assistance centers to figure out how to access them. Lloyd remains an optimist. “Optimism is really all we have sometimes,” she said. More

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      in US Politics

      Green investment boom and electric car sales: six key things about Biden’s climate bill

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      The US’ first serious legislative attempt to tackle the climate crisis, the Inflation Reduction Act, is hitting its first anniversary both lauded for turbocharging a seismic shift to clean energy while also weathering serious attack from Republicans.Joe Biden hailed the bill, which despite its name is at heart a major shove towards a future dominated by renewable energy and electric vehicles, as “one of the most significant laws in our history” when signing it on 16 August last year.And the White House is trying to use the first year marker to extol it as a pivotal moment in tackling the climate emergency.“It’s the largest investment in clean energy in American history, and I would argue in world history, to tackle the climate crisis,” John Podesta, Biden’s chief clean energy advisor, told the Guardian. “With any legislation it takes time to get traction, but this is performing above expectations.”Podesta said there has been an “enormous response” in take-up for the tax credits that festoon the $369bn bill, directed at zero-carbon energy projects such as solar, wind and nuclear, grants for bring renewables manufacturing to the US and consumer incentives to purchase electric cars, heat pumps and electric stoves.Here are the key points to know about the impact of the act so far as it approaches its anniversary on August 16:1A boom in clean energy investmentThere has been around $278bn in new clean energy investments, creating more than 170,000 jobs, across the US in the first year of the Inflation Reduction Act, according to an estimate by the advocacy group Climate Power. The White House claims that there will be twice as much wind, solar and battery storage deployment over the next seven years than if the bill was never enacted, with companies already spending twice as much on new manufacturing facilities as they were pre-IRA.“It’s been more impactful than I or other observers would’ve thought,” said James Stock, a climate economist at Harvard University.Stock said that while the Inflation Reduction Act won’t by itself eliminate planet-heating emissions in the US, it is the “first substantive step” towards doing so and should help propagate the next generation of hoped-for clean fuels, such as hydrogen, in its 10-year lifespan. “As the tax credits are uncapped, too, we will see a lot more invested than we expected,” he said. “We could easily see $800bn to $1.2tn.”2More people are buying electric vehiclesThe Inflation Reduction Act includes rebates of up to $7,500 for buying an electric vehicle, and this incentive appears to be paying off – EV sales are set to top 1m in the US for the first time this year. Moreover, over half of US drivers are considering an EV for their next purchase, polling has shown.This transition isn’t without its hurdles, however – there has been a shortage of key parts in the EV supply chain, many models still remain prohibitively expensive and unions have been unhappy at the lack of worker protections for many of the new plants that are popping up. Climate advocates, meanwhile, have questioned why similarly strong support hasn’t been given to public transit or e-bikes to help get people out of cars altogether.3It will slash US emissions, but not by enoughThe US is the world’s second largest emitter of greenhouse gases and the Inflation Reduction Act is widely forecast to slash these emissions, by as much as 48% by 2035, from 2005 levels, according to one analysis.These forecasts have a relatively wide range of estimates due to uncertainties such as economic growth but even in the most optimistic scenario the US will require further measures if it is to get to net zero emissions by 2050, as scientists have said is imperative if the world is to avoid catastrophic climate impacts.“Even though we passed the IRA you ain’t seen nothing yet,” said Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate leader, in promising a fresh climate bill recently. But given the riven nature of US politics, the prospects of such legislation is remote in the near term.A more likely way to bridge the emissions gap will be a raft of regulatory actions by the Environmental Protection Agency, such as new standards to cut pollution from cars, trucks and power plants, as well as progress by individual states. “We basically need everything to go right,” said John Larsen, a partner at Rhodium group, an energy analysis organization4The IRA has so far escaped Republican cuts – but Biden is fighting to get creditThe legislation was a breakthrough moment following decades of obfuscation and delay by Congress despite increasingly frantic warnings by climate scientists over global heating, with the bill itself borne from months of torturous, comprise-laden negotiations with Joe Manchin, the coal baron senator from West Virginia who held a swing vote for its passage.But the legislation has already faced the threat of repeal from Republicans, who universally voted against it, with the GOP’s first bill after gaining control of the House of Representatives this year gutting key elements of the Inflation Reduction Act. This is despite the majority of clean energy investments flowing to Republican-led districts.Biden has also faced the ire of climate progressives for somewhat undercutting his landmark moment with an aggressive giveaway of oil and gas drilling leases on public land, including the controversial Willow oil project in Alaska, and for incentivizing the use of technologies such as carbon capture that have been criticized as an unproven distraction at a time when the world is baking under record heatwaves.“Biden has an atrocious track record on fossil fuels, and that needs to change,” said Jean Su, an attorney and climate campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity who called on Biden to declare a climate emergency. There needs to be a “sea-change in this administration’s approach” on the climate crisis, according to Jeff Merkley, a Democratic senator. “No more green lighting fossil gas projects. No more stalling on a climate emergency. Now is the time for us to live up to the full promise of the Inflation Reduction Act.”Polling shows the majority of American voters disapprove of Biden’s handling of the climate crisis and only three in 10 have heard that much about the Inflation Reduction Act at all. Such perceptions will need to be turned around if the US president is to help secure the legacy of the bill in next year’s election.“We are going at a record clip to try to address this climate crisis,” said White House adviser Podesta. “I know people want us to hurry up and I wish we could produce a net zero economy immediately but this is a global transition that’s never occurred in human history. We need to get this job done.”The IRA act has not pleased leaders in the EU who have attacked it for being “protectionist” though some have argued they should instead be investing along similar lines.Clean energy investment has gone to red statesNo Republican voted for the Inflation Reduction Act but most of the investment that has been triggered by the bill has been funneled into projects in GOP-held Congressional districts. An emerging ‘battery belt’ is forming in the US south, with battery and electric vehicle plants popping up in states such as Georgia, Tennessee and Texas.“The IRA has been absolutely critical for us in terms of giving market certainties to go bold and big in our investment,” said a spokeswoman for QCells, a solar manufacturer that has embarked upon a major expansion in Georgia.5Renewables are booming – but there’s a transmission bottleneckIf the future wasn’t renewables before the IRA, it certainly is now – more than 80% of new electricity capacity this year will come from wind, solar and battery storage, according to federal government forecasts. The framers of the legislation hoped it will create a sort of virtuous circle whereby more renewable capacity will push down the cost of already cheap clean energy sources, seeding yet further renewable deployment.Solar panels may be dotting California and wind turbines sprouting off the east coast, but without the unglamorous build-out of transmission lines much of the benefits of the Inflation Reduction Act may be lost.Not only is there a lack of physical poles and wires to shift clean energy from one part of the country to another, many clean energy projects are facing interminable waits, lasting several years, to be connected to the grid at all. There is more than 1,250 gigawatts of solar and wind capacity actively seeking grid connection, which is about equal to the entire existing US power plant fleet.“Something’s going to have to change to get this deployment online,” said Larsen. “Beyond that it will be about building stuff at scale, very, very quickly.” More

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      in US Politics

      Devastating Hawaii fires made ‘much more dangerous’ by climate change

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      The devastating fires in Hawaii, where at least 53 people have died after a conflagration that engulfed the historic town of Lahaina, were worsened by a number of factors including climate change, scientists have said.Rising global temperatures and drought have helped turn parts of Hawaii into a tinderbox ahead of one of the deadliest fires in modern US history, with these conditions worsened by strong winds from a nearby cyclone.Katharine Hayhoe, the chief scientist at the Nature Conservancy, said that global heating is causing vegetation to dry out, priming it as fuel for an outbreak of fire. “Climate change doesn’t usually start the fires; but it intensifies them, increasing the area they burn and making them much more dangerous,” Hayhoe tweeted.Nearly a fifth of Maui, the Hawaiian island where the fires have occurred, is in severe drought, according to the US Drought Monitor. The island has experienced other serious fires in recent years, with blazes in 2018 and 2021 razing hundreds of homes and causing the evacuation of thousands of residents and tourists.Experts say that wildfires in Hawaii are now burning through four times the amount of area than in previous decades, in part due to the proliferation of more flammable non-native grasses but also rising global temperatures.“We can say there are conditions that are consistent with wildfire, wildfire size and expansion that are changing as climate changes,” Erica Fleishman, a climate scientist at Oregon State University told CNN. “And some of the things that we’re seeing with this wildfire in Maui are consistent with some of the trends that are known and projected as climate changes.”Hawaii is experiencing increasingly dry conditions, with scientists calculating that 90% of the state is getting less rainfall than it did a century ago, with the period since 2008 particularly dry.The growing susceptibility of Hawaii to major fires was highlighted by a 2015 study that found that rainfall has been 31% lower in the wet season since 1990, in selected monitoring sites on the islands. The state, known for its volcanoes and lush forests, is in parts drying out as global heating continues to escalate.The flames that tore through Lahaina, meanwhile, were fanned by winds from the passing Hurricane Dora and the climate crisis is causing an overall increase in strong cyclones in the central Pacific. The influence of the cyclone upon the fires surprised scientists, given that Dora was churning around 500 miles away from Maui.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Hurricane Dora is very far away from Hawaii, but you still have this fire occurrence here,” said Pao-Shin Chu, Hawaii’s state climatologist. “So this is something we didn’t expect to see.”Those concerned about the climate crisis, meanwhile, called for further efforts to combat global heating from Joe Biden, who has declared a federal disaster in Hawaii. “We need to take action immediately or else it will get even worse,” said Jeff Merkley, a Democratic senator.“The extreme wildfires in Lahania, in this summer of climate disasters, are yet more proof that we are in a climate emergency and this crisis is killing us,” said Kaniela Ing, a climate activist and indigenous leader in Hawaii. More

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      in US Politics

      Private jets are awful for the climate. It’s time to tax the rich who fly in them | Edward J Markey

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      The climate crisis is not in transit, it’s arrived at the gate. It’s in our skies, our water, and our land – with record-shattering heat waves, increasingly severe wildfires and flooding from superstorms and rising seas.We have no time for delays. Tackling this crisis and protecting frontline environmental justice communities will take all of us. And the tax-dodging ultra-wealthy need to stop fueling the problem and start supporting first-class solutions.That’s why, this July, I introduced the Fueling Alternative Transportation with a Carbon Aviation Tax (Fatcat) Act with Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez.Private air travel is the most energy-intensive form of transportation. For each passenger, private jets pollute as much as 14 times more than commercial flights and 50 times more than trains. Despite their sky-high emissions, private air travel is taxed considerably less than commercial air travel.My legislation changes that. Because the 1% should not get a free ride while destroying our environment.At the moment, billionaires and the ultra-wealthy are getting a bargain, paying less in taxes each year to fly private and contribute more pollution than millions of drivers combined on the roads below. Just one hour of flying private negates the climate benefits of driving an electric car for an entire year. That is unfair and it is unacceptable.For the sake of our environment, it is time to ground these fat cats and make them pay their fair share, so that we can invest in building the energy-efficient and clean public transportation that our economy and communities across the country desperately need. We cannot continue to ask frontline communities – disproportionately low-income, rural, immigrant, Black and brown Americans who are bearing the weight of the climate crisis – to subsidize billionaires jet-setting the globe.Our legislation would increase fuel taxes for private jet travel from the current $0.22 to nearly $2 a gallon – the equivalent of an estimated $200 a metric ton of a private jet’s CO2 emissions – and remove existing fuel tax exemptions for private flight activities that worsen the climate crisis, like oil or gas exploration.The revenue generated by the Fatcat Act would be transferred to the Airport and Airway Trust Fund and a newly created federal Clean Communities Trust Fund to support air monitoring for environmental justice communities and long-term investments in clean, affordable public transportation across the country – including passenger rail and bus routes near commercial airports.To fully tackle the climate crisis at the scale that is required, we need to ensure that those who are fueling this problem are held accountable for contributing to the solution. It is, of course, the same logic that should, but sadly does not, apply to our tax code.If Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and countless Wall Street hedge fund managers want to fly private jets, the least they can do is pay their fair share in taxes to compensate for the damage to our environment and the wear on our infrastructure. It’s unconscionable that they be allowed to continue to pay pennies on the dollar to pollute our environment as Americans suffer through the hottest days in an estimated 125,000 years. Everyday Americans should not have to pay for their excess.And let’s be clear: this is an issue of economic and environmental justice. The wealthiest 1% globally are responsible for more than twice as much carbon dioxide pollution as the bottom 50%. But the burden of that pollution gets passed along to people already struggling.A billionaire who takes to the skies in a private jet isn’t going to feel the hardship of paying a sky-high air conditioning or electric bill. The ultra-wealthy who own their own airplanes aren’t going to feel the hardship of breathing dirty air.We are approaching a dangerous tipping point in our battle against the climate crisis. This summer’s brutal weather is just a preview of what is to come. We all need to step up to do our part to address this crisis. Especially jet-setting billionaires.
      Edward J Markey is a US senator from Massachusetts More

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      in Elections

      With National Monument Designation, Biden Tries to Balance Electoral Realities

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      The president has highlighted his climate actions as a way to spur domestic energy production and create blue-collar jobs, while nodding to environmental activists and tribal leaders.The president designated nearly a million acres of land in Red Butte, Ariz., as a national monument.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesAfter spending most of his appearance near the Grand Canyon describing how his fifth national monument designation would preserve sagebrush, bighorn sheep and 450 kinds of birds, President Biden said on Tuesday that protecting the land long held sacred by Native American leaders was not just a matter of the environment.“By creating this monument, we’re setting aside new spaces for families to bike, hunt, fish and camp, growing the tourism economy,” Mr. Biden said as he declared nearly a million acres near the Grand Canyon as a national monument, with the 300-million-year-old “majestic red cliffs” serving as his backdrop.“Preserving these lands is good not only for Arizona, but for the planet,” he said. “It’s good for the economy.”Mr. Biden has often framed his climate investments as a means to spur domestic energy production, one that would create thousands of jobs for blue-collar workers. But when he traveled to Arizona to announce a permanent ban on uranium mining in the area, he also nodded to other crucial constituencies: environmental activists and tribal leaders who have pressed the White House to make good on its ambitious campaign promises to protect the environment and ancestral homelands.The White House has presented Mr. Biden’s sales pitch for legislation aimed at cutting planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, the Inflation Reduction Act, as a job-growth machine to appeal to the middle class. But the administration knows that those who care about protecting the environment and preserving lands stripped from tribal nations are crucial voters, particularly in the battleground state of Arizona.The balancing act was reflected during Mr. Biden’s visit to the mountainous range of Red Butte near the Grand Canyon, where he spoke of job creation while also acknowledging environmental activists and tribal leaders.Indigenous people, Mr. Biden said, “fought for decades to be able to return to these lands to protect these lands from mining and development to clear them of contamination to preserve their shared legacy.”The Biden administration has argued that the Grand Canyon region contains just about 1.3 percent of the country’s uranium reserves.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesThe White House hopes Mr. Biden’s message is received by not just Native Americans but also young and climate-conscious voters, many of whom have yet to be fired up by his economy-first message.About 71 percent of Americans say they have heard “little” or “nothing at all” about the Inflation Reduction Act one year after it was signed, according to a Washington Post-University of Maryland poll. And most Americans — 57 percent — disapprove of Mr. Biden’s handling of climate change, according to the poll. Recent polls also show that voter sentiment on the economy continues to drive the president’s negative approval ratings.Mr. Biden has been inconsistent in his efforts to protect federal lands and waters. This year he approved the Willow project, a large oil-drilling development in the pristine Arctic wilderness. The administration also approved more oil and gas permits in its first two years than President Donald J. Trump did in his, and agreed to a series of compromises in the Inflation Reduction Act, Mr. Biden’s signature climate law, to allow offshore oil and gas leasing in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska’s Cook Inlet.“It’s a pick-your-battle environment,” said Joel Clement, a former policy director at the Interior Department.Mr. Clement, who is now a senior program officer at the Lemelson Foundation, a philanthropic group funding work on climate change, said he believed the Biden administration was intent on protecting Indigenous lands and culture, and also on blocking as much fossil fuel production as it could.But, he said, “The calculus revolves around how much damage they can weather from the right on each of these things.”The Biden administration needs to amp up its climate change messaging as campaign season heats up, said Anthony Leiserowitz, the director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, which has conducted surveys on Americans’ climate opinions since 2007.While the message about jobs and the economy might be a winning strategy in a general election, Mr. Leiserowitz said Mr. Biden’s base of climate-focused voters wanted to see the president use the bully pulpit to talk more about replacing fossil fuels, the burning of which is dangerously heating the planet.“They have more teachable moments to talk about climate change with the American people than any other president in history because we are getting hit every day by another two-by-four of climate extremes on steroids,” Mr. Leiserowitz said.Mr. Biden leaned into that message on Tuesday, describing his efforts to combat the effects of climate change, including investing $720 million for Native American communities to ease the impact of droughts and rising sea levels. Standing before an Arizona delegation as well as tribal leaders donning traditional attire, Mr. Biden framed the Inflation Reduction Act as the biggest investment in climate conservation and environmental justice on record.But his announcement also highlighted the risks Mr. Biden faces as he seeks to conserve lands while also promoting the expansion of clean energy. Uranium is a fuel most widely used for nuclear plants, a key source of energy that does not produce carbon dioxide emissions.As countries work to curb planet-warming greenhouse gasses, competition for uranium is expected to increase, according to experts. The United States imports the majority of its uranium, from Kazakhstan, Canada, Australia and Russia.Paul Goranson, the chief executive of enCore Energy, which has mining claims in the Grand Canyon area, said the uranium found there is of a higher grade than in other parts of the United States. Cutting off that supply, he said, will keep the United States reliant on imports, which could have an impact on national security and hurt the Biden administration’s ability to develop zero-emissions energy sources to fight climate change.“It seems the timing is a bit inconsistent with the president’s objectives for clean energy,” Mr. Goranson said. “It doesn’t seem to be aligning with his stated clean energy targets.”The Biden administration has argued that the Grand Canyon region contains just about 1.3 percent of the country’s uranium reserves. Environmental groups also noted that because the area was under a 20-year moratorium imposed during the Obama administration, no mining would have occurred for at least a decade anyway.Republicans blasted Mr. Biden’s decision this week. Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, the top Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and a supporter of nuclear energy, accused the president of “supporting our enemies” by blocking uranium production. American companies currently pay around $1 billion a year to Russia’s state-owned nuclear agency to buy uranium.The White House’s balancing act of framing its agenda as a boon to domestic investment and job growth, as well as a way to combat climate change and advance environmental justice, will continue throughout the re-election campaign, according to senior White House officials. After Mr. Biden was endorsed by the four largest environmental groups in the United States in June, the president celebrated days later at a rally for union workers.“The investment isn’t only going to help us save the planet, it’s going to create jobs — lots of jobs, tens of thousands of good-paying union jobs,” Mr. Biden reminded A.F.L.-C.I.O. members at the rally in Philadelphia.That strategy was evident on Tuesday. As Mr. Biden talked about the importance of protecting the country’s natural wonders, Vice President Kamala Harris joined Labor Department officials in Philadelphia to speak to construction workers about efforts to raise their wages.And after the event at the Grand Canyon, Mr. Biden traveled to Albuquerque, where he will describe how his signature climate and clean energy bill also creates manufacturing jobs in the clean energy sector.A group gathered to see President Biden.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesJohn Leshy, a public lands expert who served in the Interior Department during the Clinton and the Carter administrations, said trade-offs between developing renewable energy to fight climate change and conserving and protecting public lands will only increase in the years to come.“We’ve got a catastrophe in the offing if we don’t move rapidly to decarbonize,” Mr. Leshy said. “I don’t think that means opening up the Grand Canyon to uranium mining everywhere, but in some situations it does mean we’re going to have to grit our teeth” to allow for more minerals development, he said.For Carletta Tilousi, a member of the Havasupai Tribe, Mr. Biden’s monument designation means that her ancestors “are finally going to be feeling rested.”“A lot of these areas are in places where there were once gathering sites of tribal people and many years ago, hundred years ago, where our ancestors once roamed and we still roam today here,” she said. “But I believe those areas are very important to our existence.” More

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      in Elections

      A Republican 2024 Climate Strategy: More Drilling, Less Clean Energy

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      Project 2025, a conservative “battle plan” for the next Republican president, would stop attempts to cut the pollution that is heating the planet and encourage more emissions.During a summer of scorching heat that has broken records and forced Americans to confront the reality of climate change, conservatives are laying the groundwork for future Republican administration that would dismantle efforts to slow global warming.The move is part of a sweeping strategy dubbed Project 2025 that Paul Dans of the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank organizing the effort, has called a “battle plan” for the first 180 days of a future Republican presidency.The climate and energy provisions would be among the most severe swings away from current federal policies.The plan calls for shredding regulations to curb greenhouse gas pollution from cars, oil and gas wells and power plants, dismantling almost every clean energy program in the federal government and boosting the production of fossil fuels — the burning of which is the chief cause of planetary warming.The New York Times asked the leading Republican presidential candidates whether they support the Project 2025 strategy but none of the campaigns responded. Still, several of the architects are veterans of the Trump administration, and their recommendations match positions held by former President Donald J. Trump, the current front-runner for the 2024 Republican nomination.The $22 million project also includes personnel lists and a transition strategy in the event a Republican wins the 2024 election. The nearly 1,000-page plan, which would reshape the executive branch to place more power into the president’s hands, outlines changes for nearly every agency across the government.The Heritage Foundation worked on the plan with dozens of conservative groups ranging from the Heartland Institute, which has denied climate science, to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which says “climate change does not endanger the survival of civilization or the habitability of the planet.”Mr. Dans said the Heritage Foundation delivered the blueprint to every Republican presidential hopeful. While polls have found that young Republicans are worried about global warming, Mr. Dans said the feedback he has received confirms the blueprint reflects where the majority of party leaders stand.“We have gotten very good reception from this,” he said. “This is a plotting of points of where the conservative movement sits at this time.”Paul Dans of the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank behind Project 2025, in April.Leigh Vogel for The New York TimesThere is a pronounced partisan split in the country when it comes to climate change, surveys have shown. An NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll conducted last month found that while 56 percent of respondents called climate change a major threat — including a majority of independents and nearly 90 percent of Democrats — about 70 percent of Republicans said global warming was either a minor threat or no threat at all.Project 2025 does not offer any proposals for curbing the greenhouse gas emissions that are dangerously heating the planet and which scientists have said must be sharply and quickly reduced to avoid the most catastrophic impacts.Asked what the country should do to combat climate change, Diana Furchtgott-Roth, director of the Heritage Foundation’s energy and climate center, said “I really hadn’t thought about it in those terms” and then offered that Americans should use more natural gas.Natural gas produces half the carbon dioxide emissions of coal when burned. But gas facilities frequently leak methane, a greenhouse gas that is much more powerful than carbon dioxide in the short term and has emerged as a growing concern among climate scientists.The blueprint said the next Republican president would help repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, the 2022 law that is offering $370 billion for wind, solar, nuclear, green hydrogen and electric vehicle technology, with most of the new investments taking place in Republican-led states.The plan calls for shuttering a Department of Energy office that has $400 billion in loan authority to help emerging green technologies. It would make it more difficult for solar, wind and other renewable power — the fastest growing energy source in the United States — to be added to the grid. Climate change would no longer be considered an issue worthy of discussion on the National Security Council, and allied nations would be encouraged to buy and use more fossil fuels rather than renewable energy.In July, Phoenix experienced a record-breaking streak of above-100-degree days. Ash Ponders for The New York TimesThe blueprint throws open the door to drilling inside the pristine Arctic wilderness, promises legal protections for energy companies that kill birds while extracting oil and gas and declares the federal government has an “obligation to develop vast oil and gas and coal resources” on America’s public lands.Notably, it also would restart a quest for something climate denialists have long considered their holy grail: reversal of a 2009 scientific finding at the Environmental Protection Agency that says carbon dioxide emissions are a danger to public health.Erasing that finding, conservatives have long believed, would essentially strip the federal government of the right to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from most sources.In interviews, Mr. Dans and three of the top authors of the report agreed that the climate is changing. But they insisted that scientists are debating the extent to which human activity is responsible.On the contrary, the overwhelming majority of climate scientists around the world agree that the burning of oil, gas and coal since the Industrial Age has led to an increase of the average global temperature of 1.2 degrees Celsius, or 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit.The plan calls on the government to stop trying to make automobiles more fuel efficient and to block states from adopting California’s stringent automobile pollution standards.Ms. Furchtgott-Roth said any measures the United States would take to cut carbon would be undermined by rising emissions in countries like China, currently the planet’s biggest polluter. It would be impossible to convince China, to cut its emissions, she said.Mandy Gunasekara was chief of staff at the E.P.A. during the Trump administration and considers herself the force behind Mr. Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the 2015 Paris climate accord. She led the section outlining plans for that agency, and said that regarding whether carbon emissions pose a danger to human health “there’s a misconception that any of the science is a settled issue.”The plan does not offer any proposals for curbing the greenhouse gas emissions that are dangerously heating the planet.Leigh Vogel for The New York TimesBernard L. McNamee is a former Trump administration official who has worked as an adviser to fossil fuel companies as well as for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, which spreads misinformation about climate change. He wrote the section of the strategy covering the Department of Energy, which said the national laboratories have been too focused on climate change and renewable energy. In an interview, Mr. McNamee said he believes the role of the agency is to make sure energy is affordable and reliable.Mr. Dans said a mandate of Project 2025 is to “investigate whether the dimensions of climate change exist and what can actually be done.” As for the influence of burning fossil fuels, he said, “I think the science is still out on that quite frankly.”In actuality, it is not.The top scientists in the United States concluded in an exhaustive study produced during the Trump administration that humans — the cars we drive, the power plants we operate, the forests we destroy — are to blame. “There is no convincing alternative explanation supported by the extent of the observational evidence,” scientists wrote.Climate advocates said the Republican strategy would take the country in the wrong direction even as heat waves, drought and wildfires worsen because of emissions.“This agenda would be laughable if the consequences of it weren’t so dire,” said Christy Goldfuss, chief policy impact officer for the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group.Republicans who have called for their party to accept climate change said they were disappointed by the blueprint and worried about the direction of the party.“I think its out-of-touch Beltway silliness and it’s not meeting Americans where they are,” said Sarah Hunt, president of the Joseph Rainey Center for Public Policy, which works with Republican state officials on energy needs.Firefighters battling the Agua Fire in Soledad Canyon near Agua Dulce, Calif., last month.David Swanson/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesShe called efforts to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, which is pouring money and jobs overwhelmingly into red states, particularly impractical.“Obviously as conservatives we’re concerned about fiscal responsibility, but if you look at what Republican voters think, a lot of Republicans in red states show strong support for provisions of the I.R.A.,” Ms. Hunt said.Representative John Curtis, Republican of Utah, who launched a conservative climate caucus, called it “vital that Republicans engage in supporting good energy and climate policy.”Without directly commenting on the G.O.P. blueprint, Mr. Curtis said “I look forward to seeing the solutions put forward by the various presidential candidates and hope there is a robust debate of ideas to ensure we have reliable, affordable and clean energy.”Benji Backer, executive chairman and founder of the American Conservation Coalition, a group of young Republicans who want climate action, said he felt Project 2025 was wrongheaded.“If they were smart about this issue they would have taken approach that said ‘the Biden administration has done things in a way they don’t agree with but here’s our vision’,” he said. “Instead they remove it from being a priority.”He noted climate change is a real concern among young Republicans. By a nearly two-to-one margin, polls have found, Republicans aged 18 to 39 years old are more likely to agree that “human activity contributes a great deal to climate change,” and that the federal government has a role to play in curbing it.Of Project 2025, he said, “This sort of approach on climate is not acceptable to the next generation.” More